Ball Passing is grounded in the basic act of passing a ball from one person to the next. Teams of participants, organized in groups divisible by three, stand in rows on bleachers and pass brightly-colored 4” nerf balls, creating complex visual and temporal patterns. The action of passing a ball is extremely simple, yet the organization of the work—the rhythmic patterns and physical configurations—is exceedingly complex.
posted to MetaFilter by starkeffect at 10:34 AM on May 9, 2009 (63 comments)

Where can I get Brennivin in the States? (Or online without ridiculous shipping)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by wrok at 9:17 AM on April 30, 2009 (4 comments)

A loud composition, in 7/4 time, 120 BPM.
posted to MeFi Music by idiopath at 5:48 PM on April 16, 2009 (30 comments)

I know there are many Mefi references to self-publishing, but this question is a little different. Let me explain the background:
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mateuslee at 8:01 AM on April 27, 2009 (7 comments)

From the Dungeon to the Dictionary. A brief discussion of the origins of that least popular form of government, the magocracy, the author analyzes the dweomer of the word itself, consulting many a hefty libram in the process.
posted to MetaFilter by kaibutsu at 12:19 AM on April 27, 2009 (78 comments)

Self Portrait of the painter Tamara de Lempicka; Born Maria Gorska 1898 in Poland. Lempicka lived a Life of Deco and Decadence. Her portraits are known for mixing “lighting by Caravaggio, tubism by Fernand Léger and lipstick by Chanel”. Her Complete works are viewable as a slideshow. Criticised as portraying the dubious glamour and discipline of fascism; she became the most talked about Art Deco painter of her time; her erotic portraits are testaments of the glittering 1920's. Here is a reassessment (pdf). She died in 1980 and her ashes were scattered over the volcano Popocatepetl . (wiki) (some links nsfw)
posted to MetaFilter by adamvasco at 8:54 AM on April 27, 2009 (12 comments)

The Gorillaz documentary Bananaz has premiered online and can be viewed in full on Babelgum.
posted to MetaFilter by slimepuppy at 4:18 AM on April 21, 2009 (17 comments)

One reason a dog can be such a comfort when you're feeling blue is that he doesn't try to find out why.
posted to MetaTalk by Smart Dalek at 7:34 PM on April 20, 2009 (35 comments)

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix
posted to MetaFilter by finite at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2009 (20 comments)

The Torture Colony. In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a utopia whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds... [i]nvestigations by Amnesty International and the governments of Chile, Germany, and France, as well as the testimony of former colonos who, over the years, managed to escape the colony, have revealed evidence of terrible crimes: child molestation, forced labor, weapons trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, torture, and murder. It may sound like the farfetched plot of Saw VII (or something out of Kafka) but it's horrifyingly true. [Previously]
posted to MetaFilter by dersins at 1:28 PM on April 17, 2009 (36 comments)

The Go Team might have done it first. But nobody wreaks havoc in a Pac-Man suit like the French!
posted to MetaFilter by manosthf at 12:57 PM on April 16, 2009 (33 comments)

"ironic electro-pop"
posted to MeFi Music by frenetic at 8:17 PM on June 29, 2006 (32 comments)

"Everything begins with complex cladograms I scribble down on large sheets of paper. Before any pictures, these family trees serve as the 'backbone' of the project; allowing me to develop the relationships among different animals and derive ideas from one another." Welcome to the beautiful nonexistent world of Snaiad. Inhabitants include Titanoformes, Cardiocetes, Sprogophidians, and Blumbomeniforms. There are also maps and a timeline. Fantastic speculative zoology from Nemo Ramjet.
posted to MetaFilter by HumanComplex at 8:50 AM on April 16, 2009 (22 comments)

"Not until I put them there." David Antin worked in a wide range of innovative modes until landing in the early 1970s on what he calls the talk poem. Antin speaks extemporaneously and then transcribes his talks using only space as punctuation. The implications of positioning these works as poetry are, of course, part of the point.
posted to MetaFilter by roll truck roll at 10:11 PM on April 14, 2009 (15 comments)

The Digital Library of Slovenia has (among other things) music [like this] [previously], posters [like this] and photographs [like this].
posted to MetaFilter by tellurian at 10:12 PM on April 14, 2009 (12 comments)

To go, or not to go? that is the question;--/Whether 'tis better for my views to suffer/The ease and quiet of yon hated rival,/Or to take arms against the haughty people,/And by invading end them? The Napoleonic Wars, in word, image and map, at the European Library.
posted to MetaFilter by OmieWise at 6:26 AM on April 14, 2009 (7 comments)

Within the last few hours, a trend on Twitter has emerged in response to Amazon's removing the sales ranking of books they consider to have "adult content," which also keeps those books from appearing in search results. However, while seeming to unilaterally de-list any books with gay themes and characters, many books with adult heterosexual content were left untouched.
posted to MetaFilter by TochterAusElysium at 1:57 PM on April 12, 2009 (305 comments)

Think your life sucks? Take a trip through a day in the life of a Canadian McDonald's employee with this great simulator.
There's more to it than that first animated gif, click the 'simulator' button below...
posted to MetaFilter by TiggleTaggleTiger at 3:14 PM on March 9, 2002 (25 comments)

For the last 50 years, grammar and style have been learned from The Elements of Style. That's not necessarily a good thing.
posted to MetaFilter by jacquilynne at 8:53 AM on April 11, 2009 (117 comments)

Happy 40th birthday, RFC 1!
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 12:59 PM on April 7, 2009 (16 comments)

Hey, AskMefites, thanks for potentially saving my life.
posted to MetaTalk by desjardins at 8:56 AM on April 7, 2009 (52 comments)

Witness trees teach us about presettlement landscapes, surveying methods and Native American art forms. Witness trees inspire us, hide in plain sight, have free parking, become forgotten and sometimes become tables. Witness trees are protected by law and sometimes by signs, but not protected from stupidity. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 8:10 AM on September 3, 2007 (19 comments)

Tone Matrix.
posted to MetaFilter by slater at 12:14 PM on April 5, 2009 (33 comments)

Should you find yourself wandering around the city of Leiden, the Netherlands sometime, you may notice some curious markings on the city's walls.

These Muurgedichten ("Wall Poems") adorn many of the town's streets (clickable map), and many English-language poets are represented: one John Keats, for instance, inside a bookshop; Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings, W.B. Yeats, some guy called William Shakespeare, or this ode to Charlie Parker by American William Waring Cuney.
posted to MetaFilter by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:58 PM on April 5, 2009 (15 comments)

Inspired by the Metatalk thread.
posted to MeFi Music by kaibutsu at 8:08 PM on April 2, 2009 (8 comments)

There's a town called Meta.
posted to MetaTalk by little e at 11:30 AM on April 1, 2009 (99 comments)

Ooo es muy macho libertariadadista? (Ricardo Mantelban es muy macho! Pero es libertariadadista? Yo no se. Quién sabe? ) El Presidente Bushista esay: “Queiro preguntas muy macho” Quein es ooo preforma en la supportidad de la guerra en terror?Diez preguntas.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman at 12:37 PM on January 11, 2006 (55 comments)

mid-70s proto-punk band, Death, have finally gotten a real disc out. unearthed in crates lost for decades, their founder dead before seeing it happen, their children never knowing the shadowy past of their forebears, the sound of black pop-punk-politi-metal-wave is finally here.
posted to MetaFilter by artof.mulata at 12:44 PM on March 29, 2009 (16 comments)

Please help me compile a list of offbeat things to do with a friend or friends, to serve as a reference for when I'm sick of the same old plans.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Stewriffic at 3:00 PM on March 22, 2009 (28 comments)

Basically a modern version of Home of the Underdogs. Full database imported, user comments, user added reviews, user ratings, community all integrated. It's still ongoing, and will hopefully get more polished as time goes on. Downloads are still forthcoming.
posted to MetaFilter Projects by Lord_Pall at 11:24 AM on March 24, 2009 (20 comments)

Yoko Ono's flickr page has a ton of gems, some of which combine illustrations from the John Lennon Anthology with first-hand accounts of their relationship by Yoko: Introduction, Ascot, New York City, The Lost Weekend, Dakota. [via].
posted to MetaFilter by lunit at 10:58 AM on March 26, 2009 (27 comments)

Followup: The mystery of the Phantom may be solved.
posted to MetaTalk by BrotherCaine at 2:38 AM on March 26, 2009 (36 comments)

Question for Montrealers! In the past few years I have noticed that some stores display a sticker on their front door that features a tree and roots and (sometimes) the words "La famille". It has a white field and the tree is cartoon-ey, green and brown. The caption is written in some kind of cursive font.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mikel at 6:37 AM on March 25, 2009 (3 comments)

Everything you ever wanted to read about left-wing political theory but were afraid to look up.
posted to MetaFilter by cthuljew at 8:55 AM on March 23, 2009 (67 comments)

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Rouen in France and gave a speech in which he describes, as an aspiring young writer in Turkey in the 70's, the comfort and guidance he got from a certain letter written from Istanbul by Flaubert.
posted to MetaFilter by lucia__is__dada at 2:40 AM on March 23, 2009 (5 comments)

The Dictionary of American Regional English is nearing completion.
posted to MetaFilter by teamparka at 1:23 PM on March 22, 2009 (43 comments)

Former Black Panther and civil rights activist Richard Aoki passed away Sunday from medical complications.
posted to MetaFilter by lunit at 12:18 PM on March 20, 2009 (9 comments)

Almost-Friday-Flash-Fun: Hex Empire. A simple but engaging hexagon based strategy game. (via)
posted to MetaFilter by Caduceus at 1:48 PM on March 19, 2009 (42 comments)

Do you know how to make a frog drunk? I bet you don't. But I do. I fired my pot up one morning and got it going real good. It had just started running high shots. That is what you call it when it first starts to come out. For so many jugs, then it turns to backins. Anyway here come hopping up to the still a damn big frog. I thought to myself ol' boy I'll make you drunk as hell.
Legendary Appalachian moonshiner Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton was arrested by the ATF in March 2008 [PDF]. At his arrest, agents found guns, three 1000-gallon stills, hundreds of gallons of sour mash, and over 800 gallons of white lightning. This week at 61 years old, and faced with 18 months in prison, he committed suicide.
posted to MetaFilter by Who_Am_I at 6:24 AM on March 19, 2009 (78 comments)

I just wanted to commend WCityMike for his outstanding obit post on Natasha Richardson, and commend the mods for opting for a post that gets it right, rather than simply getting it first.
posted to MetaTalk by Horace Rumpole at 5:33 AM on March 19, 2009 (81 comments)

So you go to be spaceman. If the space race had taken a few different turns, we might have ended up with a historical exhibit that looked like the one cooked up by the American Dream Technical Institute.
posted to MetaFilter by mikepop at 5:40 PM on March 18, 2009 (6 comments)

Suffering from a bad case of cosmic dread? Have you voyaged too far into the midst of the black seas of infinity? Concerned about invisible abominations stalking you in the dead of night? Fortunately, there's help. (SLYT).
posted to MetaFilter by clockworkjoe at 11:17 AM on March 17, 2009 (20 comments)

Fatal Distraction. The lead story in this Sunday's Washington Post Magazine. "Forgetting a child in the back seat of a hot, parked car is a horrifying, inexcusable mistake. But is it a crime?". By Gene Weingarten.
posted to MetaFilter by Ike_Arumba at 1:57 PM on March 7, 2009 (295 comments)

In 1916, Hugo Ball would fulfill his own dadaist manifesto by reciting his own nonsense poetry at the Cabaret Voltaire (not that Cabaret Voltaire), while wearing a Cubist costume or a cylinder with the number 13 covering his face. Ball's poem, Gadji Beri Bimba, inspired the Talking Heads song, I Zimbra, but his most famous poem is Karawane, a pioneering example of sound poetry. Karawane has more conventional avant-garde versions on YouTube, but none is more surreal than the recitation from memory by Marie Osmond (yes, that Marie Osmond) from a 1980s broadcast of Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
posted to MetaFilter by jonp72 at 7:53 PM on March 9, 2009 (21 comments)

On June 8, 1783, the volcano Laki in south Iceland tore open a 16-mile fissure that erupted over nine cubic miles of lava. Not only would this eruption kill over 50% of Iceland's livestock population, leading to famine which killed approximately 25% of the population; its effects were felt the world over, with flourine, sulfur dioxide, ash, sand and drastically cooled tempertaures from the blotted-out sun reaching as far afield as North America and Africa. The eruption lasted for nearly eight months. And from the day the eruption began, a humble priest named Jón Steingrímsson would make his mark in history.
posted to MetaFilter by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:38 PM on March 11, 2009 (24 comments)

Encounter Critical is the awesomest Fantasy/Sci-Fi RPG to come out of an alternate 1979. Full list of game-related resources here (Yahoo group, reg req'd).
posted to MetaFilter by mkultra at 9:04 AM on March 10, 2009 (17 comments)

The thermal time hypothesis.
posted to MetaFilter by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:54 PM on March 5, 2009 (36 comments)

"Notes and Queries: A Medium of Communication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc." Notes and Queries is a long running journal which printed the, well, notes and queries sent in to them by readers. Google books seems to have full view available for most, if not all, of the issues from the founding in 1849 up through 1908.
posted to MetaFilter by Caduceus at 10:22 AM on March 7, 2009 (12 comments)

Remember the guy who escaped a prison transport, led police on a five state chase across the south, stole a Wal-Mart truck to get to his dying mama, and then took off in Crystal Gale's tour bus before being apprehended in Florida? He's at it again.
posted to MetaFilter by Roman Graves at 4:49 PM on March 6, 2009 (57 comments)

Ötzi the Iceman. Up close and personal.Really close.
posted to MetaFilter by merelyglib at 3:01 PM on March 6, 2009 (24 comments)